Addict

I used to be able to run around all winter without a coat. Then a few years ago that suddenly stopped. I wish I remembered exactly when it was so I could figure out if there was a specific cause. But now I’m cold all the time.

According to Chinese medicine that’s a yang deficiency. Yang generates heat. When you are low in it, you are always cold. The acupuncture treatments for that involved points in the lower back. That’s all well and good but I can’t put needles in my own lower back. I’m not quite bendy enough to see what I’m doing. The other option is moxa. It is an herb that is made into cigar-like sticks. You burn it near the points and they get warm. We played with it a bit in lab and it was warm but it didn’t seem like anything amazing to me. But, I’m tired of being cold so I ordered some.

Last night I lit it and held it over the points on my lower back. It gets really warm so it felt like having a heat lamp pointing at my back. That was nice. I could have stood there all day but I didn’t want to waste the stick. So I snuffed it out and went to bed. That’s when I realized that I could still feel the warmth. It was like my muscles were warm and glowing. It was happy. I decided that I was going to be a moxa addict.

Now it is about 12 hours later and my muscles are still all glowy. Maybe this is what it is like to be normally warm and I’ve just forgotten. I’m totally going to be an addict now.